In Which Kara Ponders the Ethics of Universal Empathy
by Avery42
Summary: Kara can't help but to want to help everyone, even when their terrible. Light sequel to "With the Freedom Fighters on Earth-X" ResistanceGeneral!Astra AU Oneshot


AN: So apparently I lied when I said I wasn't going to post anything else.

Also, if you're a bit confused about the ending, this is technically a sequel to "With the Freedom Fighters on Earth-X," so you might want to read that first.

* * *

Was it wrong that Kara had been hoping to find some way to save her doppelganger? She wasn't sure - just as she had been unsure every other time she faced such a dilemma. Overgirl was a person, a horrible, murderous, and excessively cruel person, but a person nonetheless, and doesn't that grant her some inalienable right to life? (Even if she would have ignored said right for anyone who got in her way).

It nagged at her, even as she fought. Had they done enough? If their little multiverse superhero team had tried a bit harder, spared a little time, could they have found a cure, come to a peaceful resolution and freed Earth-X from it's Nazi regime without bloodshed? (No, probably not. She knew it was ridiculous, that even if they had come up with a way to fix the other Kara, they never would have convinced them. And if by some miracle they ended up working with their doubles - an ethical quandary in itself - they were ideologues that wouldn't change their ways, at least not without more than could be reasonably offered in the time they had, and that those with power below them would fight tooth and nail to keep things the same even if they did. But, she supposed, as cliche as it was, if she didn't have hope, hope for a better future, then what did she have?)

Kara entered a dive, intending to pop up behind her parallel self and drive her to where the ground fight was. Overgirl just flew out of the way and shot an easily dodged heat-ray at her for good measure before flying higher.

She sighed. It was all messy and complicated in a way that made her long for the elegantly simplistic utilitarian views of Krypton and her youth - albeit without much force behind the wish (partly because she knew that when you took off the rose colored glasses things never looked the same, but mostly because she could never feel ethically comfortable with such values now, and fallaciously due to how easy they were corrupt into the ideology of the woman in front of her). The right choice would have been to remove her doppelganger with as few resources and as minimal damage as possible - if that happened to be fixing her heart as opposed to engaging her in aerial combat, then so be it. All the better if she could increase the collective joy via her removal.

They threw punches back and forth, traded frost breath and heat visions, without much thought on either of their parts, all called up as if from rote memorization of one's favorite text. It was easy to get lost in the rhythm, focus on the fight and it's energy over questions she didn't know how to answer, which was all well and good in the moment, as it let her work on helping her friends, but wasn't great when things suddenly stopped and Kara Zor-El from Earth-X started going supernova, leaving Kara Danvers of Earth-38 with unanswered musings and no more time left to make a choice. (Not that she really had time left to try and engage differently, she hadn't since the fight started, or perhaps since she escaped).

Ethical quandaries aside, Kara dragged herself out of the atmosphere, saw a bright light, and went crashing down.

She was a bit surprised the blast didn't kill her, though it took more or less all her energy to survive it (Oh - so that's how they could have saved her double. Just tire her out, burn up that excess solar radiation), but not that she was now falling back to Earth, crushed on impact because her body was no longer indestructible. She supposed that was the difference between the two of them - she was willing to sacrifice herself for others, at least where it counted, while her double was, to put it simply, a selfish bitch who got herself into this mess out of greed and a lust for power. It wasn't really closure, but it'd do.

One last breath escaped her as she prepared to die. She hoped Alex would be okay. And Lena. And Winn. And J'onn. And Kal. And, well, everybody.

A brief, somewhat empty, prayer was said for their future, and with that, she closed her eyes and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And then she opened them again, only to find herself in someone's arms, being flown across the city.

"Aunt Astra?"


End file.
